


safe

by orphan_account



Category: Women's Soccer RPF
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-15
Updated: 2016-09-15
Packaged: 2018-08-15 03:57:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8041594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Christen wants to play it safe. Tobin won't let her.





	safe

Christen leaves 30 minutes early for her first class of her first semester of college.

She’s mapped the route on Google maps at least six times and she’s 90 percent sure that even at her most ambling pace, she should be able to cover the distance from her dorm to her classroom in around six minutes. But she’s always lived by the ideal that it’s better to be safe than sorry, and she doesn’t really have any other plans besides nervously laying in bed and listening to her roommate panic about her first chemistry lab.

So she sets out at 8:30 a.m., the breeze crisp and the sun soft on her face, both thumbs looped into the straps of her backpack. She’s taken only a handful of steps when she’s tugged backwards and into a slightly different orbit by an urgent hand gripping her backpack.

“You’re unzipped.” She turns to identify the voice behind her, but the source keeps a firm grip on her backpack, pulling the zippers of her bag closed with a slight screech. “There.”

Christen tips her head over her left shoulder and is met by a crooked grin. The girl behind her moves to her side, sticking out one hand and shoving the other into the back pocket of her jeans. 

“I’m Tobin.” Her grip is tight but fleeting on Christens hand, and she quickly runs the same hand nervously through her hair.

“You live across the hall,” Christen says, realizing finally where she recognizes the slouched shoulders and wide smile.

“That I do.” Tobin squints at her for a second, head cocked to the side. “Are you the room that smells like pot all the time?”

“No, that’s Joe next door.” She can’t hold back a slight smirk, and she scuffs her shoe against Tobin’s for a second. “Don’t know whether I should be insulted or flattered that you’d think that.”

Tobin laughs at that, a short bark of surprised amusement.

“Be flattered,” she says, running the same hand through her hair again. “Of course his name is Joe, though. What a stoner name.”

“Really?” Christen laughs. “Out of all the names in the world to be a stoner, you put ‘Joe’ at the top of your list?”

She earns a shrug and another look of amusement.

“What would top your list?”

Christen lets her eyes trace over Tobin’s scuffed Vans, her ripped jeans, her “Good Vibes” shirt and wrist wrapped in woven bracelets.

“I don’t know, ‘Tobin' might make it up there,” Christen says, and she grins openly at the way the other girl's jaw drops in mock disbelief.

“I’ll let this one pass because I just met you,” Tobin mutters, nudging her shoulder against Christen’s. “You going to class?”

“Yeah.” She turns to walk, keeping their shoulders side by side. “Stuedebaker 112, for my Writing 100 class.”

“Oh, dope.” Tobin grins again, that lopsided smile that seems to fill her face almost too easily. “I’m in Stuedebaker too, 202. For my sociology class. We can walk together.”

“Yeah.” Christen smiles back, a little more timidly. “That sounds good.”

***

Tobin sticks her head in Christen's room two nights later, her face crumpled up in something between disgust and concern.

“For God’s sake, what are you listening to?” she asks, eyes widening at the sight of Christen and her roommate leaping around the room in something resembling a dance.

“This is Fetty Wap!” shouts Kelley, the tiny roommate that has somehow wrecked every ounce of fear that Christen previously had surrounding the idea of meeting new friends in college. “And it is art! And you must dance to art!”

She grabs Tobin’s wrists without even asking for an introduction, pulling her fully into the room and attempting to grind on the taller girl, who is nearly doubled over with laughter, holding Kelley off with a palm to her forehead.

“What is this and what zoo did it escape from?” Tobin asks, eyes shining with some type of hidden joke again as she looks at Christen, who laughs.

“This is Kelley.” Christen steps forward, tugging Kelley backwards gently. “Kelley, this is Tobin. She’s across the hall.”

“Hello, Tobin from across the hall,” Kelley says, leaning back against her bed, slightly out of breath. “What brings you over?”

“Dinner?” Tobin responds, her voice pleading. “It’s been five days and I already think the cafeteria food is eating me from the inside out, but my roommate is like a fitness nut and won’t eat anything processed or fried and—“

“Say no more.” Christen and Kelley are already reaching for their wallets, and soon the trio is walking shoulder to shoulder, debating the merits of Panda Express chow mein. 

As they turn down the street by their dorm, Christen glances quickly at Tobin. She’s in a grey shirt and black jeans cuffed at the ankles, a red hat backwards and crooked on her head. She’s watching Kelley with a look of both confusion and amusement, as if the smaller girl is a puzzle she can’t quite figure out, and Christen smiles to herself.

Tobin looks up, just for a second, and her smile widens, softens, becomes something slightly different as she meets Christen’s eyes.

***

They wanted to go to a frat house after their first week of college, but by the time 10 p.m. on a Friday night rolls around, Kelley and Christen are lying on their backs on the floor of their dorm, exhausted.

“I have an idea,” Christen says, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Pizza. Movies.”

Kelley rolls on her side to face Christen, her eyebrows climbing upwards in excitement.

“I have a fake.” She grins, and Christen grins back, sitting up with a groan as Kelley scrambles to her feet and out of the room.

That’s how they end up curled on the floor under a heap of blankets, drunk off wine and cheap vodka, sated with Domino’s pizza and watching some new horror movie, on their first Friday night of their freshman year.

They invite Tobin over, and her roommate comes with, a slender brunette named Alex who almost immediately cracks a joke dirty enough to put Kelley on her ass with laughter.

(the vodka lemonade in her hand had also helps a little.)

At some point, Alex and Kelley start arguing about the best Disney movie — it's Frozen vs. Mulan, a perfectly valid debate in Christen’s opinion, which leaves Tobin shaking her head in disappointed disagreement — and then Kelley climbs over Tobin’s lap and pushes her towards Christen in an effort to gain better positioning to continue defending Mulan.

Tobin inches over even closer, reaching over Christen to snag the last piece of pizza, not pulling away from the way their shoulders are pressed together.

“Hey,” Christen mutters, shooting a fake glare at Tobin as she takes another sip of wine. “What if I wanted that?”

“Tough.” Tobin smiled, her eyes challenging. “You’d have to come and get it.”

Christen raises her eyebrows, and this time she’s the one with her jaw dropping open, nudging her elbow into Tobin’s ribs.

“I could take you,” she mutters, turning back to at least pretend to watch the movie, her voice low and nearly drowned out by the noise from the TV. She can see Tobin’s smile from the corner of her eye and she’s trying her best not to notice the fact that the other girl’s eyes are still watching her face intently. When she doesn’t turn her head, Tobin turns away, relaxing even more into Christen’s side.

“I’m sure you could.” Tobin’s voice is soft and teasing, and Christen’s smile grows slightly. She slouches down a little lower, leaning her head towards Tobin, sinking into the sound of the movie playing and Kelley arguing with Alex and Tobin’s hitched breathing.

She doesn’t remember how the movie ends.

***

A week later, Christen is lying on her ground with both hands behind her head, wincing in pain.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry.” Tobin crouches at her side, her hands falling on Christen’s waist and then her jaw, cradling her head. “Are you okay?”

She’s been knocked breathless by falling off of a longboard and flat on her ass, and she’s pretty sure she just gained a bruise the size of a basketball that will keep her from sitting for the rest of the week. But the biggest thing that Christen is worried about at this point is the fact that every time Tobin touches a fresh patch of bare skin, it’s making her want to jump out of her damn body. She sucks in a breath, squishing her eyes closed and then opening them again.

“Yeah, yeah.” Tobin’s eyes are wide and worried, and Christen softens slightly at the way her gaze keeps darting across Christen’s body as if she can check for broken bones just by looking at her. “I’m good. Help me up?”

Tobin tugs her gently to her feet with both hands, then drops her grip to Christen’s waist, and it’s all she can do to swallow a gasp at the proximity and urgency of Tobin’s touch.

“I am the worst teacher ever.” Christen laughs at that, and she takes the moment as an excuse to pull away, shaking her head. 

She had been skeptical enough when Tobin had offered — well, more like insisted — to teach her how to skateboard. It ended in about ten minutes with Christen flying off the end of the board, and Tobin honestly hadn’t been much help until that point, but she still shakes her head in disagreement.

“You’re not that bad.” She picks up the board, groaning. “But I might be a little broken.”

“I owe you,” Tobin says earnestly, slinging an arm around Christen and tugging her close. “Whatever you want, I owe it to you.”

“Can I hold you to that?” Christen turns her head up towards Tobin, meeting her eyes with a small laugh, and that laugh grows as Tobin nods even more earnestly. “Okay then, Heath. It’s a deal.”

***

Tobin bugs her for weeks about the favor. They go on numerous Panda Express runs and spend pretty much every day studying together in the library, coffee cups scattered empty among their books. They go to football games and finally make it to the frat parties; they walk to class twice a week and fall asleep in each other’s rooms watching Netflix. They sneak into the swimming pool at 1 a.m., they take runs across campus, they join 12 different clubs and quit all but three of them. They spend all the time in the world together, and yet still Tobin insists that she owes Christen.

Finally, Christen gives in, almost a month later when her bruise is completely faded. It’s just dinner, and she picks somewhere that isn’t too expensive, and she tells herself over and over that she’s not nervous in the slightest as she puts on her eyeliner.

“So you’re just going to dinner?” Kelley is leaned against her desk, her arms folded. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” Christen grits out, narrowing her eyes into her mirror. “I don’t get why you’re hung up on this.”

“You’re wearing makeup.” Kelley’s sentences turn up slightly in tone at the end, but they don’t really sound like questions. “To dinner.”

“It’s like a girls' night,” Christen says, letting out a low curse as she drops her mascara on the floor. “We’re dressing up and actually leaving campus, you know? It’ll be nice.”

“A girls’ night.” Kelley’s voice is tinged with amusement, but Christen is too damn concerned with putting on her mascara to really pay attention to it. “With just the two of you. And Tobin is paying for dinner.”

“Those are the facts as I know them.” Christen swivels in her chair and shoots Kelley a look. “Can you go annoy someone else now?”

“Gladly.” She grabs her room key and shoots a quick wink at Christen, who just rolls her eyes. As she leaves the room, Kelley tosses her parting shot over her shoulder.

“The last time I looked that good for a dinner I wasn’t paying for, I expected a good-night kiss at the least.”

She gets the door closed just in time to block the pillow that Christen tosses in her direction.

***

“You’ve never been kissed?” Tobin’s voice is almost squeaky in its surprise, and Christen feels color rush to her face. “Never?”

“No, I mean—“ Christen shrugs, turning her head away. They’re lying on their backs in a clearing that they often hike to, situated barely five minutes behind their dorm room. The stars are bright, the moon only a sliver in the sky above them. Tobin was smart enough to bring a blanket, which Christen absently rubs between her fingers. “I’m just not really that type of person.”

“Not the kissing type of person?” Tobin’s trying to joke, but Christen can’t help but feel awkward.

“I just— I don’t know.” She’s tried to explain this before and the words always came out in a jumble. Tonight, though, it’s just Tobin, so she stops for a second, breathes, takes her time. Trusts. “I don’t just kiss people for the fun of it, or when I’m drunk. I’m— I don’t trust people. With my body, or with my, like, my feelings. So I have to trust someone with how I feel before I can trust them with my body. And I’ve just never, I don’t know, I’ve never had someone—“

“Who you trusted enough to be that vulnerable?” She turns her head, and Tobin is looking right at her. And of course Tobin is right, of course she gets it, because it’s her and she seems to always be right _there,_ perfectly in stride with Christen’s thoughts.

“Yeah.” Christen looks back at the sky. “And no one back home even, I guess, they just never even looked at me that way. So it was never anything.”

“Christen.” She doesn’t turn her head, but she can feel Tobin’s eyes and she knows that if she looked over Tobin’s brow would be furrowed, her gaze insistent. “You are beautiful.”

“Thank you,” she whispers. She closes her eyes, tightening her fists.

Tobin is still looking at her. Christen ignores it. She breathes.

She trusts.

***

Three days later, Christen gets asked out on a date.

It comes as a surprise, really, a guy in her math study group who stops her and asks if she’ll get dinner with him that night.

“I know it’s a Wednesday,” he says, speaking over her before she can even respond. “So if you want to use that as an excuse to say no, go ahead and I’ll walk out of here with my honor, okay?”

Christen pauses. She looks at him, at his trim hair and his silver wristwatch and his overeager eyes.

“Okay.” She smiles slightly. “I’d like that.”

She tells Tobin first because, well, because it’s Tobin. And she’s her best friend, her go-to, so of course it makes logical sense to tell her any piece of information first. But it’s also not a surprise to see the way Tobin’s spine straightens, the way her smile is not wide or beaming, the way she nods and looks unsurprised but not at all unaffected by the news.

“Are you going to go?” Christen is surprised by the question, and her clear surprise only adds to the pain in Tobin’s eyes.

“Are you kidding?” Her tone has a bite to it, some sort of wicked edge that she hadn’t expected but can’t seem to control. “What else would I do? I can’t just waste time with you guys in the dorms every night.”

There’s a pause, a beat of silence when she considers apologizing. And then Tobin is on her feet, turning to adjust something on her desk.

“Maybe you should go get ready then.” Her voice is tight, and for a moment Christen considers staying, but then she remembers the stars and the way Tobin’s eyes traced her jawline and she stands as well, not even trying to slow down the door as it slams behind her.

***

Hours later, barely past eight, she lets herself back into Tobin’s room. The lights are off, and Tobin’s face is illuminated by the laptop balanced on her knees, body scrunched up tightly under a thick blanket.

“Back so early?” She expected there to be at least a little sharpness to Tobin’s voice, but it’s gentle, so gentle that it breaks Christen’s heart the tiniest bit for ever leaving.

“Yeah.” She doesn’t even ask, just motions to Tobin to move over as she crawls into the twin bed and pulls half of the blanket over her body. “Wasn’t that great.”

“Why?” Tobin asks the question and Christen swears to God she can hear the other girl holding her breath. She waits, considers, deliberates, before finally deciding that just right now, for half a second, she doesn’t have to take the safest option.

“You know why,” she mutters, and she buries her face in Tobin’s shoulder to signal the end of the conversation. After a moment, she hears the tap of a finger on the keyboard and the movie that Tobin was watching is playing again. After several longer moments, she feels a hand hesitantly brush against her head, fingers intertwining in her hair. 

She raises her head slightly and Tobin freezes, but Christen just lets her cheek rest back on Tobin’s bicep.

“Don’t stop.” Her words are hazy and soft with exhaustion, and in moments she’s asleep.

***

The next morning is uncomfortable. Mainly because a twin bed isn’t meant to be shared by two 19-year-olds, but also because Tobin’s eyes keep lingering hopefully and Christen’s chest keeps hurting with guilt. 

She goes back across the hall, but it feels like a prison cell, cramped, confined. By night, she needs to get out of this room, this dorm, this whole fucking campus, so she asks Tobin to hike to the clearing — their safe space, as she calls it — and she agrees.

They’re quiet on the walk up, feet rasping against dirt until finally they reach the top. Christen crosses the small clearing to an overhang that gives an understatedly beautiful view of the campus beneath them. She breathes.

“You know what I said about kissing someone?” Christen asks, taking another step towards the edge of the drop off. “You know, how I’d have to be really close to them, to trust them?”

“Yeah.” Tobin’s head is tipped back, her eyes fixed on the sky, on anything except for Christen. “I remember.”

Christen sucks in a breath. She kicks a rock next to her foot, watching it tumble down the edge of the dusty precipice.

“I guess the main problem with that is, if I get close enough for that to be a thing, for that to be a real thing, then I wouldn't want to do it.” She can hear Tobin walking towards her, each step slow and hesitant, as if she’s approaching a wild animal. “Because then I’d value them so much, as a friend and, I don’t know, just as a human being. So I wouldn’t do it then. I couldn’t, because it wouldn’t be safe.”

Tobin is standing next to her. She’s looking at Christen, close enough that they can both hear the rise and fall of their breathing.

“And you always like what’s safest.” Tobin says it softly, and there isn’t indictment in her voice, only a sense of loss, of acceptance, maybe even of forgiveness.

“Better safe than sorry,” Christen says, and her voice is almost a whisper. They’re silent for minutes, a handful of minutes that stretch out. It’s sunset and these moments mean more, because with each breath the sun sinks further into the mountains, drawing their time to an end in a series of progressing heartbeats.

“So just friends.” Tobin says it, and it’s not a question, because they never asked the questions that they should have, never said these things out loud. “That’s what you’re saying.”

Christen doesn’t say yes or no. She just puts a hand on Tobin’s arm and starts back down the trail. She gets to the first switchback before she hears footsteps behind her again. Tobin settles into a pace next to her, their shoulders brushing, their shadows growing longer as they walk silently into the night.

***

She avoids Tobin.

Which is stupid, because they live across the hall from one another and eat in the same place three times a day and walk to the same buildings so often that their paths seem magnetically attracted to one another.

But still, she does her best, which works pretty well for all of 16 hours because it’s a Friday and they both have the day off of classes. Christen stays in her room and ignores their group chat and tries to do her homework. Mostly, the effort turns into lying on her back and listening to music — ‘angsty music’ as Kelley would call it — until Kelley comes in and let’s out a loud shout of “We’re going out, bitch!” to jerk her out of her stupor.

“What’s up with you?” Kelley asks, pausing in the doorway and narrowing her eyes at Christen. “And why are all the lights off?”

“They’re not all off,” Christen mutters. 

That was close to accurate. Christen had kept the lights off all day, but she switched on a string of Christmas lights that circled the room twice, adding a soft glow to the room. Kelley looks around one more time, her eyebrows raised, before shrugging and beginning to rummage through her dresser.

“Well, regardless, we’re going out,” she says, wiggling into a pair of skinny jeans. “Even if I have to drag you and Tobin.”

“She’s coming?” Christen’s voice cracks on the upbeat of the second word, and she flushes. Kelley levels an odd look at her before turning back around.

“Yes.” She drags the word out slowly. “Like she always does. She’s being weird about it, but you’re both going, because I need wing women and that’s that. So put on some pants and let’s go.”

Christen nods, then sits up slowly, rubbing her eyes. If Tobin’s being “weird” — and that means a lot coming from Kelley, who once wore a onesie to a frat party — then maybe they can just avoid each other and the conversation from the day before completely. She repeats this to herself again and again, as she gets dressed, as she does her makeup, as she slides her ID and her phone into her back pocket and crosses the hall to knock on Tobin and Alex’s door.

Alex bounds out and Tobin follows her, slouching and shoving one hand through her hair. To be fair, she ignores Christen just as vigorously. They walk out in pairs, Alex with Christen, Kelley with Tobin, keeping their distance. But Christen can feel Tobin behind her, feel the absence, the gap that’s slowly spreading.

She’s used to catching Tobin looking at her. She’s used to looking up and meeting her eyes, to glancing over to see that Tobin is watching her face and not the TV screen, watching her eyes even when someone else is talking.

But tonight, her eyes are anywhere else. They walk into the party and Tobin walks away — “To get drinks!” is the explanation that Kelley shouts over the music — and Christen sucks in a breath, bracing herself for a long night.

Because to be honest, she never dances with boys at parties. She never dances with anyone at parties, except for her friends, and by her friends she means Tobin because God there are a lot of things she wants when she’s drunk but there’s nothing she wants more than her.

Tonight she tries to learn how to dance a frat party, how to swallow mouthfuls of beer until her head is buzzing and then let her hips looser than normal, swaying to a song with a bad beat and even worse lyrics. She tells herself that she’s losing it, that she needs to just have a normal night, to let loose, to be carefree like Alex and Kelley, who are currently scream-singing the lyrics to a song Christen doesn’t even recognize. 

So she does. And it sucks, but it’s also okay, especially as her head gets lighter and the colors of the room begin to blur. And it’s all okay until someone’s hand is on her waist and she’s whirling around and pulling away, because God knows there’s a lot she can handle tonight but being touched is not one of those things.

She spins, fast, throwing her arms out, and in the process knocks a completely full cup of beer out of Tobin’s hand. The liquid goes everywhere, but mainly it goes on Tobin, soaking her shirt through, and then she’s just standing there, arms out, eyes wide as she stares at Christen.

Days ago, the two of them would’ve burst into hysterical laughter over this. Christen would’ve tried to force Tobin to take her shirt off here, and Tobin would’ve found another cup of beer to pour all over her head. They would’ve gone home a sticky, beer-soaked mess and they wouldn’t have stopped smiling the whole time.

Instead, Tobin stares at Christen for several more seconds before turning abruptly on her heel and cutting across the room. Christen takes off after her, but Tobin is taller and more drunk and therefore more forceful as she shoves her way towards the bathroom. The door almost slams shut, but Christen catches it with one hand and forces her way in.

“Tobs, I’m sorry—“

“You’re good.” Tobin has both hands firmly planted on the sink, glaring at her reflection in the mirror. “Can you just— can you leave? I need to dry off.”

“I’m sorry.” Christen remains planted firm, feet spread slightly as if in a defensive stance. “I am.”

Tobin’s eyes remain fixed on the glass in front of her. She sucks in a deep breath, and Christen sees the muscles in her forearms tense, flex.

“What are you sorry for, Christen?” She turns her head but doesn’t meet her eyes. “For covering me in beer? Or for making me feel like nothing to you?”

“That’s not what I—“

“I know.” Tobin sucks in another breath and turns to face Christen completely, and her shoulders are almost limp, her eyes defeated. “I know you didn’t mean to, you didn’t want to, you can’t help that you don’t want me. It’s fine. Don’t give me excuses, it’s not worth your time.”

There’s silence in the room, although outside a bass is pounding and someone is shouting chanted commands for a freshman to chug. Christen’s voice feels wobbly, her chest tight, but she needs to force these words out.

“I do.” She pauses. “Want you. I do want you.”

Tobin’s eyes narrow. For a moment, Christen is afraid that this isn’t what she was saying, that she misread all of the signs somehow, that she broke something she wasn’t even aware was whole. Then Tobin took a step closer.

“You’re drunk.” She takes another step.

“Not that drunk,” Christen says, folding her arms.

“You’re drunk,” Tobin repeats, her feet still.

“Not as drunk as you.” She cocks her head to one side. “Right?”

Tobin considers that for a second, her eyes scanning Christen’s face. She takes another step and now she’s close enough to touch, her hips just an inch away from brushing against Christen’s.

“I would say this sober,” Tobin mutters, and she shuffles just slightly forward, and now they are touching and Christen’s throat is dry. “That’s the difference.”

“So would I.” Christen tears her eyes away, dropping them to the floor. She can feel Tobin’s breath, faint on her neck, and she gnaws absently at her lip. “I would.”

They are quiet for half of a breath, and then Tobin drops her hands to Christen’s hips, soft but steady, one thumb tracing the curve of her stomach.

“Christen.” Her voice is low and rough and anxious and urgent. “Let me kiss you. Please.”

She brings her eyes back up to Tobin’s face, and her eyes are soft and a little wet, something balanced between an ache and a plea buried in the way she’s watching Christen think. She glances down at her mouth, then back up, then back down, and she’s not sure what she wants but—

A fist slams on the door pressed to Christen’s back, and she jumps, a scream muffled in her mouth. There’s a shout for them to get out, and then suddenly Christen isn’t sure what she wants but she’s 100 positive what she doesn’t want, and she doesn’t want her first kiss to be with her best friend pressing her against the door of a grungy frat bathroom. So she grabs Tobin by the wrist, tugging her away, hard, and dragging her back across the dance floor, past Kelley who is leaned against the bar with a beer in hand, past Alex dancing up on some random boy they don’t know, and out into the cool night air.

“Christen?” Tobin’s voice is shaky as Christen continues to pull at her, the fingers of one hand wrapped tightly around a tanned wrist, chafing slightly against those woven bracelets. “Chris, where are we going?”

She doesn’t answer, because honestly Tobin should know, shouldn’t have had to even ask, and the moment they get to the foot of the trail she glances back at her and immediately sees that she finally gets it. They climb the trail quickly, up the decent and towards the clearing, and then Tobin is ducking ahead of her, under a low-hanging branch and into the grass where they’ve often laid to watch the stars.

“Okay, so what?” Tobin asks, her voice almost a yell as she flings both arms out, back facing Tobin. “What now?”

She swivels, another question halfway to her lips, but in her haste to start shouting she didn’t even hear Christen following her, pace for pace, and now the smaller girl’s hands are fisted in her shirt and they’re standing toe to toe and her breath has somehow been stolen by the half second in between Christen looking like she’s going to kiss the living hell out of her and the moment that Christen actually kisses the hell out of her.

Tobin does all she can — she reacts. She wraps both arms around Christen’s waist, pulling her tighter, pressing them together until they break apart suddenly, laughing, and then kissing, and then laughing again. Tobin can’t stop laughing because she’s drunk, and because she’s half-frozen with the cold of her still-soaked shirt, and because her best friend, the best friend she’s ever had, just chose her.

And Christen, well, Christen just can’t stop smiling.

Because Christen always wanted what was best, what was right, what was safe. She always knew what that was, or what she thought that was, always strayed on the side of what wouldn’t get her hurt. But now she’s hurting in the most beautiful way, as if she’s blooming and bleeding at the same time. 

She thought she knew what was safe but she didn’t know what it felt like for Tobin to tug at her bottom lip with her teeth and then follow it with a kiss to her cheek, then her forehead, then the space of skin between her jaw and her throat, each touch tender, gentle. She didn’t anticipate Tobin cradling her face in both hands and looking at her, truly looking at her, even when Christen flushed and looked away. She had no way to see this coming, and she’s glad she never did, because Tobin snuck up on her and surprised her in the smallest and largest ways.

And with Tobin pressed to her, reeking of beer and laughing lightly as she tucks a stray piece of hair behind her ear, Christen knows this is the only definition of safe she ever wants to accept.


End file.
